To do this they have partnered with technology entrepreneur Ernesto Schmitt, co-founder of Beamly, a social TV app that allows users to chat online about their favourite shows as they watch them.

DriveTribe currently has an online holding page plus Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, and is set to launch in the autumn. According to a report on Variety, DriveTime aims to be the ultimate online destination for fans of the three presenters' new Amazon Prime show, and for car enthusiasts in general. As such, it could be likened to being for cars what Trip Advisor is for travel or Twitch for computer games.

Top Gear's executive producer Andy Wilman, front, has also moved to Amazon and is helping to set up DriveTribe

Andy Wilman, who along with Clarkson created the most recent format for Top Gear and is also working on the Amazon Prime show, is also involved. It is understood that the initial round of funding for DriveTribe came direct from Clarkson, Hammond, May, Wilman and Schmitt.

The site will be structured into “tribes”, three of which will be hosted by the stars, which users can follow based on their interests. The hosts will then create and curate content for their fans and will be able to interact with them as part of the process. In addition, users will be able to create their own tribes and produce their own content, the idea being to draw them away from more generic platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

The company, which is run separately to the Amazon Prime show, currently has 20 employees and is recruiting for product managers, designers and engineering teams, with the editorial side to come later.